A couple of weeks ago, Bandera County enjoyed being colored orange on the US Drought Monitor map. That meant the county was in severe drought conditions, as it has been for some time.
This week, unfortunately, those conditions have worsened, with about half of the county once again being painted with the red that designates extreme drought. A large triangle of extreme conditions sits over Central Texas from Medina County north to Kendall and Gillespie Counties. A small patch of exceptional drought (the most serious designation) has begun forming in the area.
According to the Texas Water Development Board, statewide reservoir storage capacity declined slightly, dropping 90,000 acre feet or 0.3 percentage points.
The drought map for the week of August 11, 2014, shows 57 percent of the state currently in moderate to exceptional drought. That was at 58 percent a week prior, 83 percent three months ago, and 88 percent a year ago.
Only far East Texas, a portion of deep South Texas, and a small area just north of Big Bend are not currently experiencing drought to some degree.
Medina Lake is currently 4.2 percent full, down 86.21 feet.